


The Agonies of Love

by 0thefemalecapacity0



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Backstory, Heartbreak, M/M, Mind Meld, Nerds reading Shakespeare, Queerplatonic Relationships, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-07 06:54:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5447294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0thefemalecapacity0/pseuds/0thefemalecapacity0
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spock makes the decision to not let the feelings between he and Jim go unacknowledged on their last day on the Enterprise.  The things love will drive a man to have consequences.  </p>
<p>Also my attempt at explaining the what happened between the five year mission and Star Trek the Motion Picture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Tired with all these, for restful Death I cry...”  Spock eyed him, inquisitively.  “...A somewhat morose topic, wouldn’t you say, Jim?”  Kirk laughed, looking over Spock more amiably and calmly than Spock had ever noted he had done so before.

Spock had found his Captain in the recreation lounge with a bottle of champagne, a book of poetry and something of a happily forlorn demeanor.  Jim had requested a day to stay behind, alone on his ship after the crew had gone.  As McCoy and Mr. Scott had left to begin their temporary duties on Earth, Mr. Spock arrived to comfort his captain, despite the illogic in lingering.  In fact, he found it to be almost an exercise of illogic that he was here at all.  

Over the course of five years and perhaps a bit more, he and the Captain had grown a friendship that he began to find he did not wish to part from.  In their last year together aboard the Enterprise, Spock noticed within himself a growing tenseness along with the growing ease of love between them.  It was a thing he continuously decided not to deal with---avoided under the feeling that five years could be stretched to infinity.  All the time in the world----Acknowledged only in times of dire need, and then discarded, but acknowledged nonetheless.

It was back on that planet with that dying, ancient, man----works of such exquisite beauty, paintings and music of the utmost calibre, a brandy aged thousands of years, and a daughter of silicon and plastic make, an android (Reina) far more intelligent than he who learned how to love only to die from it.  It was there on that planet that Spock realised there was no turning back from such feelings.  He had tried to save her, tried to stop his captain and her father.  He saw it all happen before him now, one moment she was desperately, nearly, human, the next, gravely so.  Spock grieved that day, and so he endured the doctor’s resentful waxing poetic on “The Things Love Will Drive a Man To,”  

 _What doctor?  Death?  And what of the Android girl who wanted only to know?  Who wanted truth and freedom?  What of the consequences?  Pain, Loss, people turned to objects of affection?  What of them, McCoy?_  Spock was never a stranger to love.  He just knew, so intimately The Things Love Could Drive a Man to.  And yet, with that ancient man, embellisher and despiser of humanity, dying, with his well-intentioned captain near tears, and with that beautiful new soul, now gone from existence, it felt almost selfish with for him to deny what she had so gravely sought, or for him to continue to ignore that Vulcan truth that he was in love with Jim Kirk.  In her name, he would no longer deny it or discount its significance.  

In this acknowledgement, that he had stretched out to the very last day on the Enterprise, standing before his friend, who was currently tormented by champagne and poetry, Spock found himself decided.  His love would be recognized, not buried.  

“A healthy release of melancholy, no doubt.”  Jim handed the book to Spock with the page still open.  “Go on, Spock, you have the voice for it.”  Kirk smiled.  Spock couldn’t help but give a small smile in return as he indulged his friend.  

Spock read the poem almost reverently, admiring the cleverness of the wording as well as the familiarity of the pentameter.  He tried not to think about why such a sad poem would make his captain smile so.  Still, he made certain each syllable and note of poignancy was spoken in it’s rightful place, all while calmly aware of having Jim’s every attention.  He finished with the lines:

“Tir’d with all these, from these would I be gone,  
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.”

Kirk sighed, contentedly.  “I had forgotten how well you read, Spock.”  Spock made no attempt to let his pleasure show, only watched Jim as he took the final drink of his champagne.  “Truly beautiful.”  He smiled.  “I am going to miss this.”  

Spock shook his head.  He knew how to play this game.  Play the Vulcan.  Feign, feign, deny... but tonight he would allow himself, for once, to finish it.  

“I fail to see what you find so romantic about my reading a poem with such tragic themes, certainly there is an elegance to the rhyme and meter that is no doubt, soothing, however...”

“---Romantic, Spock?”  Jim retorted, (on cue) smiling that smile.  Spock matched it as best he could.

“Ah. I mean it literarily, of course, Captain.”  He spoke quietly.  

“So do I.”  Kirk said, suddenly serious.  As serious as he could be through the mild buzz of the champagne.  Spock felt his throat tighten, unexpectedly.  He swallowed.

“Do what?”  

“Mean it.”  Kirk paused, his voice tender  “Quite literally, as it turns out.”  Oh.  Spock would almost find this conversation humorous, were he not so subdued by the gentleness in Jim’s voice.

“Jim...” he began.  “I think you misunderstand...” he could feel the Captain pull back a bit, puzzlement on his face.

“But...”  He felt his heart pounding “You are not wrong.”  There was a brief moment where Spock was uncertain either of them knew what the other was talking about.  And then with no little amount of courage, he threw over his logic and leaned towards Jim and the two fell easily into a kiss.  


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the last night on the Enterprise and they both know it. Both have to decide what is next to come.

As Spock pulled back he felt content to see Jim smiling.  It felt as he had expected, soft, safe, warm.  He wasn’t certain how he felt about the act itself, but he treasured the nearness, the comfort in it.  His captain, however, most certainly enjoyed it and looked pleasantly dumbfounded, though not losing any of his traditional smoothness.  “How about we go to my quarters?  We can talk more if you like.”  Jim had his hands on Spock’s upper arms and Spock felt the tenseness leave his body at these small touches.  “Yes.”

And so they both walked to Jim’s quarters, saying nothing, uncertain of what was to come.  Spock’s heart was beating as something like excitement built in his stomach.  They walked into Kirk’s quarters and just lingered, each waiting for the other to speak.  

Jim was the first to speak, “Spock, how do you..” he paused, evidently searching for a word that is not “feel.”  Spock was grateful for it.  “...regard... me?--our relationship?”

Spock looked down.  An urgent silence surrounded them as he considered this.  Jim’s heart pounded in his chest and he found himself growing immediately desperate for an answer.    

“Captain, I wish to answer your question honestly.”  He said, looking back up at Kirk.  “May I have a moment.”  he obliged, his nervousness leaving a little.  Spock furrowed his brow into a frown and sat for many moments.  He appeared to be focusing on many thoughts at once.

Spock glanced up at Jim then back down again.  He pursed his lips, opened them as if to speak, then closed them again.  He raised a hand as if to make a point but still spoke not.  

“I believe,”  he began, then paused to rephrase.  Jim thought this might have been the most uncertain he had ever seen Spock.  

“There is a conclusion that I must come to.  There is a pattern in my reactions to you that I cannot deny.”  He sighed, “...that it would be dishonest and illogical to deny to my own self---that I have noticed them.”  Spock glanced up at Jim and found that he held his full attention.  He found also that Jim clearly was not understanding all that Spock was attempting to imply.  

“Reactions..” he trailed on, awkwardly, “...To you... being imperiled, being happy, to my having your attention,”  Now it was Spock’s turn to feel nervous, and to his shame, doubtful.  For a brief second, all of his certainty was gone, and every one of Jim’s smiles, his compliments, their conversations, his sacrifices done on Spock’s behalf, their kiss, could be explained away by professional duty, or politeness, or an enticing demeanor, the alcohol, but he went on.  There was no going back now.  

“...to you being away from me, or with me.  How constantly you enter my, apparently undisciplined, thoughts,”  he looked up at Kirk and found a pleased smile there.  He took confidence from it.  “We Vulcans, we are not so analytical that we do not allow ourselves a certain level of poetic appreciation for those things that hold value, whatever that might mean---beauty, logic, elegance, achievement, kindness.  On record, I hold your skill at command, your ethics, and your sense of judgement in obvious high esteem.  Privately, I find that I abuse poetic appreciation to the extreme, in thoughts of what you mean to me.  I’m afraid I cannot explain more without further indignity.”  Spock concluded, seriously.  

“Spock, I don’t know what to say.”  There was a smile in his voice and their eyes met.  Jim placed his hands on Spock’s upper arms, gently, and Spock relaxed a bit into the touch.  The two men simply stood there for a moment, unwavering.  Kirk was the first to break the silence.

“We don’t have to change anything about our relationship, if you don’t want to.”  Spock raised his eyebrow in puzzlement.  “I’m not in any way attempting to insult your intelligence, Spock, when I say that... I know there are certain, human, things, conversations, feelings like these, that, seem to culturally, indicate where a relationship is meant to go...” he paused, and looked at Spock, listening intently to his every word.  “I just, I, I want you to know we don’t have to follow any of that.  I only want whatever you are comfortable with.  Spock, you know how I feel and, and---it is no loss to me, if we remain friends.  Your friendship means the world to me and, and, I realize I have something of a reputation for... physicality---”  Ah, Spock understood now.  “Jim”  He spoke, in a hushed tone, a hint of reproach in his voice.  “In these few years, I have always known you to be a man of principle.  No rumor could convince me otherwise.  There is a sensitivity and respect that colors your very nature. I thank you for it.”  Jim smiled, flushing a bit.  Spock wished to stay in this warm embrace and placed his his hands on Jim’s waist and savored the freedom in choosing to touch him.  

While the captain, a physically amiable, person had touched him many times, Spock on the other hand, had never reached out to him like this.  He had never been his to touch before.   

He could see something like pain in Jim’s eyes that he deeply wished he could look away from or take away, though he was uncertain if he could.  Spock felt his heart pound in his throat as he pulled Jim the rest of the way into a tight embrace.  He felt Jim trembling slightly as he tangled his fingers in the back of Spock’s shirt.  Spock laid his head against Jim’s, closing his eyes, delighting for at least this moment, in the warmth of the man, the feel of his soft body in his arms, his smell.  He sighed.  Jim.

“I don’t want to leave you, Spock.” he spoke, softly.

“Nor do I.”  Spock replied, his voice low and troubled.

“Vulcan poetry is beautiful,” Jim began, “but I’m afraid it doesn’t give us many answers.”

“No.”  Spock replied. “It does not.”  He entwined his fingers in Jim’s shirt and lowered his forehead to his shoulder.

“Would it be easier if I just asked?  It’s not very polite---what... do you want from me, Spock?”  Spock made no move to respond.  “And before you answer, know that I hold no expectations on you---as a Vulcan, as a human, whatever you want of me, or don’t, it won’t compromise... the way you are.”  Jim laughed, softly. “I’m not making any sense.  I’m actually nervous if you can believe that.”  Spock could feel him nuzzling his head a bit against his.  

What a night, Spock thought.  What a final night on the Enterprise.  Had the two truly planned on going their separate ways with such gaps in knowledge of the other?  Spock lifted his head and looked into Jim’s eyes and wished he had never so rebuked his human side as he had all these years.  How he despised himself in that moment for having been, so, so cold (as the Doctor might put it) to his friend, whom despite all, seemed to adore him.  How he wished he could have told Jim everything.

And then it hit him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mindmeld.  One of bonding.  Anything and Everything.  And so it began.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter I touch on Kirk and Spock's backstories so I wanna put a trigger warning for:  
> Bullying mention  
> Child abuse mention  
> Taurus IV--Hunger, fear, Governor Kodos  
> Eugenics  
> Identity Issues
> 
> I tried to write about these things mostly through implication and reader inference so it's hopefully not too triggering, but I understand that some people can't deal with these subjects at all, so I just thought I'd put a warning and say the story can still be read and mostly understood if you skip to the second line:  
> "-------------" in this chapter.

Spock and Jim sat kneeling on the floor across from each other.  Spock had his hands together.  

“We will _take it slow_ , as they say.”  Spock said.  Jim smiled.  “You have experienced a mindmeld before, Jim, but not to this extent.  It will start as if reading each other's lives.  I will attempt to control the pace at which we share, so that you may retain those private things you may not wish me to know---”

“I have no secrets from you, Spock.”  Jim said, resolutely.  Now Spock smiled.

“As you wish.  As we continue, only if you will it, our thoughts, our minds, will begin to mingle in a way that is both overwhelming and beautiful.  If you wish to stop, you only need say so.”

“I’ll let you know.”  Kirk nodded.  “I’m ready.”  Spock, now calm, pressed a hand to the side of Jim’s head and with the other, guided Jim’s hands to his own head. They began to feel each other’s presence.  A soft feeling of not being alone.

“My mind to your mind.”

“My thoughts to your thoughts”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was born in small town called Riverside Iowa.  My mother was born of a harder stock of human.  She and her family had (not necessarily _entirely_ ) rejected today’s culture of considerable technological advancement as people liked to believe, It was simply that they held fast to certain, romantic principals of the past.  She and my grandparents are some of the last true farmers on Earth to grow real plants in real  (non-soured/non-manmade reproduced:) soil.  And to my mother’s delighted surprise, as she always told me, she fell for that shy and clumsy starfleet scientist that was my father. 

_On Vulcan, I have been an alien amongst my own people.  A Vulcan who is, as I am, human----emotive, undisciplined, is shameful.  I have always respected the traditions and philosophies of my people, and yet... can you understand that, Jim?  To respect and cherish an entire culture of people who despise you for what you are?_

Though the Enterprise, is perhaps the closest thing to home I have ever known, I am always bound, with a very human pride, to that land, as my mother is and my family has been for more than a century, but as a child----as much as I loved running and playing, and working alongside my mother, taking in all she had to teach me like a sponge, it was always past our plot that I was running.  Exploring----every chance I could I’d steal my father's microscopes and other various gadgets and I’d misuse them on bugs and plant life.  I’d sneak out onto the roof of our house at night just to stare at the stars and imagine sailing out amongst them----captaining a lifesize version of the ancient model sea-boat that my father had painstakingly overseen my creation of.  

_Despite public belief, Vulcans have not eradicated hate, nor irrationality, nor shame.  The Vulcan IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations) a philosophy of which I strictly follow, is, more often then not, forgotten, or misinterpreted to fit a modern concept of Vulcan uniformity----in which a universal diversity is appreciated but interspecial beings may still be “ethically” looked down upon as impositions on cultural preservation, as well as a watering down of blood and identity._

When I turned sixteen, I went on my first expedition into space with my father, my aunt and uncle and cousins Tammy and Aaron.  It’s not a time I like to remember.  Sometimes I wish I couldn’t remember it at all.  I’ve spent so long trying not to recall, practicing how long I can go without those days flashing before my eyes, without that terrible feeling of hopelessness sinking into my gut----Taurus IV.  I can still feel the hunger.  The fear.  That terrible voice.  You’d hear it and something would jolt inside of you.  Burning fear.  Your heart pumping.  Someone was going to die.  I don’t want to die.  I don’t want to die.  

_It felt hypocritical to me as a child.  It was (in a way I could not explain) like lying----which is a concept that defies our Vulcan code.  My father, my teachers and mentors, were, ethically, logically, beyond things such as: hatred, bigotry, corporal punishment----and it’s abuse given the former concepts.  Yet, I came to know, they were not beyond manipulation of the emotionally undisciplined, nor the process of singling out the children with the unwanted traits or behaviors.  They were not beyond humiliation----making their subtle hatred known to mere children, bred in a culture without sympathy, who would physically enact their prejudices for them.  Nor were they above telling a child they must deal with being beaten into unconsciousness, on their own.  They were not above telling such a child to feel nothing---as is the Vulcan way._

His voice.  Who gave this man control?  As the days ticked on, though I hadn’t noticed,  though my father had, a pattern in which Governor Kodos was taking people.  I only noticed when families began changing----hiding disabilities no one had cause to hide before, altering appearances with hair dye, with skin discoloration.  And then one day I woke and my father was very still and very silent and there was a tall woman in a long suit.  “Aaron is gone but we’ve saved some bread for you, young man.  No, no don’t think about it.  Just eat.  Please, don’t throw up.  There’s almost no food left!  Are you going to waste what these lives have been lost for?”

_Such cold stinging days.  Tears in my eyes and a searing pain along my spine where blows had been struck.  I remember my father, rigid with disappointment, my mother yelling (righteous and irrational) and berating anyone who would listen for allowing this to happen to me----shaming them for their false morality.  I remember wishing it would be enough to save me and yet, wishing she would simply be quiet._

_After a time, my peers succeeded, and I ceased, entirely to play at being Vulcan.  It was much for a human child to bear even without the self-loathing and the pain inflicted by the other children.  And so I left with my mother to Earth, Where I found, that for humans, ceasing to be entirely vulcan, gave them leave to mock and belittle the customs and beliefs which I still held dear.  As it appears, the concept of uniformity of culture, of being, is craved even halfway across the galaxy._

Next, Tammy and my uncle are gone and my father and I are eating bread alone.  I stare down at the bread, knowing it is just that----bread.  And yet, I bite down and gag like it’s made from something else entirely.  I remember weeping and clinging to my father.  I am being foolish and am going to starve, but I simply can’t eat.  I leave our home and knock on the door of the Gausman’s.  During some of my days on Taurus I babysat their little six-year-old daughter, Julia.  I have been worried about her for days now.  She has a degenerative bone disease that is treatable but has no cure.  Thankfully, she is still there.  Mrs. Gausman smiles at seeing me as I answer the door and little Julia cries and clings to my hand when I give them the bread because they are all so hungry and afraid.

_I met a woman (Leila), a girl then, whom I cared for.  She was kind and accepting she had a great respect for knowledge, which she craved, and appreciated any new thing she could learn.  She cared for me as I was.  I came to see that in the way she looked at me and it excited me in a way, knowing the trips she took to the city were unnecessary, waiting for her to take the long way back out to the country, just so she might drop by to visit my mother and I.  A part of me begged to be able to see that glow in her eyes when she talked to me of her days, her curiosities, begged for her attention, and to be allowed to love her.  To love her would mean rejecting my Vulcanity entirely----Proving all who believed me to be seconds away from “giving in” to some “true nature.”  To that emotionally superior existence humans believed I was too pretentious to acknowledge I desired._

Several days later men and women in the suits are in the street trying to take Julia.  She is afraid.  I gave her my bread just yesterday and I won’t see her die now.  And I am beating the men and women in the suits, savagely, till my fists bleed.  I am punching and crying.  In my home, the genetic results my father had been trying to hide will soon be discovered.  They’ll find a heritage Kodos is not fond of.  I have nothing to lose and so I am bashing their skulls, my father alongside me.  I see him go down.  Hit in the back of the head.  But I’m still fighting and moving too fast for them.  Still crying and screaming like a wild thing trying to save this girl.  And I am thinking of history lessons and shaking with fear swinging my malnourished, adrenaline-filled, limbs around.  Failing now, falling.  I’m hugging Julia now.  Clinging to her as if they can’t carry both of us out to our deaths.  Just as she and I are certain the end is now, there are lights in the sky, brighter than the setting sun.

_Even light years and many cultures away, the eyes of society lingered over me, hungrily.  The hands of teenagers groped and pinched, before I could run away, trying not to appear as frightened as I was----nursing the sick feeling in your stomach when a clenched fist tells you that you shouldn’t be alive._

Rations arrived---medical technicians---authorities.  Taking everyone away.  Wheeling me away from her, away from my father still lying there.  Take them with me.  Please take them with me!

_It was then, loving that girl (Leila) that I realized I would forever be caught on the edge of this hook----baiting a culture that might critique my bones for wishing to crack under the pressure of their teeth.  I began to tire of this game.  The endless adjusting to fit environment.  Something of a depression set in that almost destroyed me._

When I returned to Earth from Taurus IV, I was not the same.  I remember the tears in my mother's eyes at knowing what we had been through.  My father was in hospital for a few days, and I remember waiting by his bedside.  He and my mother had always taught me to treasure the beauty of humanity----of the strength of love and kindness.  Perhaps I had been too sheltered for I could barely comprehend what had happened on Taurus IV.  All it took was hunger.  Hunger, and a man in a position of power with his own biases, weighing how valuable people’s lives are.  Had my father died----had he have died without giving me a chance to tell him that I love him, I love him and how could someone do that, dad?  I would have lost all faith in mankind.

_My father---light years away silently, begging to know why I had “acted against him,” why, in his mind, I had rebelled simply to spite him.  Initially, I knew I had left Vulcan for myself, yet so much of me was adjusted for others that I became too fatigued to be certain who I did anything for and for what purpose.  So I fled (again) to Vulcan, and fell into routine once more.  I could no longer bear the sadness that pervaded me on earth, nor could I carry the weight of performance.  So I chose.  I chose serenity, and self hatred, and intellect, and suppression, appreciation, without expression._

Had he died, without hugging my mother and I close----died before I could see that glow in his eyes when he finally saw her again----Died before any of us could meet my little brother Sam----A brave new, beautiful, soul, capable of any and all things, whom I would protect and love with every fiber of my being, I might never have gone into space again.  I may never have been able to deal with my trauma, or rekindle my love of knowledge or my trust in humanity again.

_Years later---after years of Vulcan training, discipline and advancement, I felt I had truly proven myself.  I was moments away from entering the Vulcan Science Academy when one of the board members made a remarkably insensitive comment about my making the cut, “despite my humanity.”  Something deeply human awakened me then, and so I took the superior offer and joined Starfleet.  It was the first decision I am certain I have ever done for myself, alone._

And so, a few years later, I did what I had always dreamed of doing, I followed in my father’s footsteps and I joined Starfleet.  I was a shy freshman, hyper-focused on studying, but in one of my first classes I made an interesting friend.  

_It was there, in Starfleet, amongst many humans and various other beings, that I met a young man_

A Vulcan

_intelligent, reserved, focused----quite like myself_

intellectual, cold, if not, a bit misunderstood.  

_He was kind, though perhaps.._

..I used you at first.  The prejudice was there.  And I saw you only as my limited Idea of what I believed vulcans to be---intelligent, efficient---

_\---I forgive you.  Though the idea lacks the complexity of what we are, but I was intelligent, efficient.._

There was a research project.  I needed help and he...

_“Would be happy to oblige, Mr. Kirk”_

“Happy, Mr. Spock?”  

_“Simply one of your Earth Expressions, Mr. Kirk.”_

“Of course, Mr. Spock”

_As we spent more time together, I admit, I grew fond of you.  The only person who saw me as myself---held no expectations.  Saw my Vulcan-ness as an advantage or simply a fact of my being.  There was no shame or guilty encouragement on your part to show my humanity to you._

You  would always listen.  You were and are logical, Spock, and there are many kinds of logics (like the ones used to justify murder and genocide) yours was always tempered with ethics, a burning curiosity, and a love of alternative viewpoints.  You were always pushing me to be the best I could be.  Your logic, honesty, and belief in me gave me confidence, emotional security.  I used it to do things I had never done before.  I went out, I took risks, I flirted and failed and I...

_May have loved you even then_

and then 

_You were gone.  The class was over._

We each had our respective duties and yet, unexpectedly,

_I felt_

so lonely

_irrational_

Come back

_Dont leave_

I’m right here.  Years later.   

_A Captain._

and the best first officer in the fleet.

 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

It was here that the bond ceased to be as an easily flowing conversation and became something else entirely.  It was a merging of thought and feeling.  Pain mingled with happiness.  Flashes of smile and memory, depth and fear.  The entire wealth of their human and vulcan complexities, years lived, love and love, and hate, sensations quite extraordinary to bear.  They felt it together, the bond.  Two minds, truly converging as one.  Spock lost control.  Secrets fell from his hands, tears from his eyes, Jim’s feelings seeped into his cracks and they cemented together.  All feeling all at once.  Love, pain, heartbreak, mothers and brothers, aliens and dictators, death, death, fear, hate, father and friends, shame, betrayal, love, need---all together.  It was beautiful and painful.   _Slow it down.  Please.  Slow it down._

Spock pulled away, gasping.  “Spock?”  Jim called, also panting.   _Empty._  Spock heard it in his head, Jim’s voice.  Spock turned away.  His heart was racing and he was breathing heavily.  “Spock?  What happened?”  Jim clung to his arm.  It was too much.  It was so much.  Spock began to weep.  He felt dizzy, as if every thought in his head spun as objects in a storm, waiting to settle.  Love, fear, hate, sadness, need, joy, flickered in and out of him in seconds.  Spock tried to breath.  Tried to calm them.  He needed Jim.  He needed to be away from Jim.   _Help me, Jim._   

“No.”  Spock panted.  

“Spock, what?”  Kirk half yelled.  

“The serenity.  It’s gone.”  He could hear Jim in his mind.  ‘I’m here with you.  Calm down, Spock.  I’m here’  The bond was broken too soon.  He couldn’t control this.  He felt as a child again, as an exposed nerve.  Desperate to exist this way.  Shaking, always anticipating the blows and blood.  In the midst of the mind meld, he could no longer suppress the shame.  He couldn’t find rationality.  He couldn’t find that rationality he had built that told him this was not a hateful thing.  These feelings all this love and pain, how could he bear it and continue to function?  How could he exist loving Jim so?  And how could he ever exist apart from him?  He had made the wrong choice?

Tears fell from his eyes and he shivered.  His skin crawled to touch Jim again.  What had Spock done?  He felt Jim, worried and euphoric at his side.  Spock turned and touched his neck and his face, without thinking.  Jim was crying and smiling and afraid---yet still and calm under pressure----A captain at all times.  

“Spock,” he began.  Spock’s lip quivered, as he ghosted his fingertips, then the back of his hand against Kirk’s cheek.  ‘don’t go’ Kirk begged he was starting to grow tired with the emotional strain.    

“I’m sorry.” Spock pleaded.  Jim began to tremble under Spock’s fingers.  The experience of a mind-meld of such a magnitude could leave human’s involved weak and fatigued.

“No.” the same thought over and over: ‘No, spock.  Please don’t leave.’ Spock guided Jim to lay down on his bed and took a long lingering look at him.  

“I am sorry. I-I have to think. I must go.” ‘Sleep, Jim.’ and just like that, Spock fled.  

He shook his head as he tried to gather himself, as he ran down to the transporter.  Trying not to feel.  Trying not to feel alone---or to hear Jim’s voice in his head, alone, and vulnerable, on his last night on the only home he’s ever known.  “This is first officer, Spock, beaming down.”  On the transporter pad he hesitated and wiped his eyes.  He wished to go back to Jim now.  He was about to beam down to Earth, wracked with thoughts of his Captain, every thought in his mind, a wish simply to talk with him.  If Spock was honest with himself, he enjoyed friendship and he had only few friends in all of his life, fewer that he wished to be around, fewer still that would forgive him for what he had done now to Jim Kirk.  

He could see two options of consolation---of tempering this turmoil, two paths he could see folding out before him, both beautiful, both withering before him----turn back now, apologize, hold the man he loves, lay next to him, wake up with him uncertain and in love, or do it all over again with the only other steadfast thing in his life---the true serenity of logic and rationality.  Fall into Vulcan routine, debate, converse, be alone, and clear of mind.  

‘Spock’ he heard a cry in his head.  He opened his communicator.

“Earth base,”  His voice was low and calm.

“Yes, Mr. Spock?”

“Is Doctor McCoy still in temporary quarters on your base?”

“Yes, Sir, it appears so.” Spock sighed.

“I must commence my work on the planet, but the Captain has been drinking and I fear for his condition.  I wish to handle this discretely.  The doctor is his friend.  If you wouldn’t mind---”

“---Ah, yes, I understand, Sir.  We will wake him and have him beam over.

“Thank you.” Spock closed his eyes.

  
“Energize.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of this is just my own selfish need to rationalize both of their backstories for myself, so sorry that there's not much story or all that great writing in this chapter. This whole fic is my own attempt to explain to myself why Kirk and Spock act (or don't act) the way they do and find reasoning for why Kirk would choose an admiralty (even though captaining is his first best destiny) and why Spock would suddenly do Kohlinar (even though he just went on a sick-ass five year mission)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weeks after Kirk and Spock's mind meld on the final night on the Enterprise. Spock has resigned from Starfleet and Kirk has been offered and will soon accept the position of admiralty.

McCoy fled down the hallway, rage hot inside him, words teaming on his tongue.  Blast Nogura!  And blast everyone on the politician-faced admiralty!  He wouldn’t let his friend become one of them.  He couldn’t believe they would have the gall to offer a captain in his prime the one-way ticket to the most dull and ill-suited career Jim would ever know, with Jim being in such a vulnerable state---not sound of mind at any rate.  Not that any of them could know that... but, thinking on it, Nogura just might.  Blast him if that were the case!  Either way, something didn’t feel right.  Some kind of half-baked manipulation was going on and McCoy wouldn’t let his friend be taken in.   _ Finally. _  Kirk’s temporary quarters.  McCoy entered without knocking.

“I’m not letting you do this, Jim!  You’ll hate yourself if you take this admiralty---you know you will.  Why are you doing this?”  his friend was sitting, solemnly, on the edge of his bed.  He barely looked up.

Jim’s voice was low, tired.  “I can’t Captain without Spock.  That’s all there is to it.  There’s no point in it for me anymore, Bones.  Can’t you see that?”

“Now you and I both know that’s just not true!”  McCoy felt himself rocketing towards his point.  Moving too fast for Jim to keep up, like a freight train off the rails, but he didn’t care.  This was ridiculous!  He wouldn’t let his friend ruin his life over an unfeeling vulcan.  “You thrive at command!  The Enterprise and her crew is everything to you!  Yes, you loved having him there, but he had nothing to do with the Enterprise---”

“---how many entanglements did we get out of simply because  _ he _ was there?”  Kirk interrupted.  He sounded so calm, so slow.  “Bones, he’s saved my life and those of the crew hundreds of times over---always balancing me out, tempering me--- _ us _ with logic, always there with the solutions when things got critical.  I need him.  You can’t presume to know what I loved.”  McCoy may have been too riled up and angry about Spock to let himself be hurt by the heartbreak in Jim’s voice.    

“Excuse me?”  He moved closer to Jim.  “Now you may have had a crush on the pointed-eared devil, but he’s not the only one who knows you.  This isn’t about you needing Spock by your side, you and I both know any number of officers can be as intelligent or rational as Spock, you could even request another damned Vulcan if that were the case but it’s not! Now, you’re gonna tell me what’s really going on, Jim, or so help me---”  

“Dammit, Bones, you’re a doctor not a psychiatrist, and I don’t need either at present so if you could please.. just... get out!”  Kirk stood and McCoy stepped back.  Now that hurt. 

“I came here as your  _ friend _ , Jim.”  He reprimanded.  “But fine go ahead, throw me out.  Make this terrible decision if it’ll help you brood.  It won’t change Spock being gone!” 

McCoy shook his head, care for a friend, and you get tossed out in favor of the Vulcan heartbreaker, typical.  Yes, he knew Jim was only doing this out of pain but... He sighed, and hesitated at the door as he thought of “the things love will drive a man to.”   _ Dammit Spock, you coward.  Why’d you have to leave him? _  He took a breath and turned back to Jim, now a dark, small, figure, once again sitting forlornly on the edge of his bed.  McCoy rolled his eyes despite himself.  He truly felt sorry for the man.      

“it’s not your fault, Jim.”  He meant it.  “Whatever happened between you two, this...  _ Kuhlineer  _ thing is his choice.  It would have come eventually no matter what you did.  He’s as stubborn in his logic as they get and there’s nothing you can do to change that.”  McCoy stopped himself.  He knew it wouldn’t help to insult Spock.  “I’m telling you as a friend; reject the promotion.  There’s no use in torturing yourself.  Spock made the choice that’s best for him... and he would want you to do the same.”

“Well, we wouldn’t know now, would we.” Jim responded a little too quickly and with bite.  It reminded McCoy of how his Captain used to be.  He sighed, inwardly as he watched his friend sink back down again into the melancholy.  “It’s done, Bones.  The five year mission is over.  I’m through waxing poetic about ships and stars. I’m...” he began a somewhat unintelligible murmur that sounded like “...tired with all these...” Then Jim pinched the bridge of his nose and gropingly massaged his face with his hands “I need rest.” 

That was it.  There was nothing he could do.  He grew fatigued at the failure this conversation had been.  “Then, I’m sorry, Jim.”  McCoy raised an eyebrow and moved towards the door so that it opened.  Then before he knew what he was saying, it came out calmly: 

“if you accept the admiralty I swear I’ll quit the whole thing.  The Enterprise, Chief M. D., Starfleet, all of it.”  Kirk just sat.   

“Goodnight, Bones.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I was better and writing McCoy. I think he's more than the angry doctor/friend that the reboot movies kind of reduce him to. But anyway I tried and I really like this chapter.
> 
> Maybe my last chapter b/c what comes next is, like, a year of Jim being and admiral and Spock enduring Kohlinar, and then the movie. So if you read this fic and it made you sad, just go watch the Motion Picture.
> 
> But imean who knows. There's a lot of shit I need to explain to myself about that movie and what happened so I may write some more inbetween chapters or just like an analysis chapter or something.


End file.
